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mike cook
@mtrc
AI/Creativity/Generative Systems Researcher and Game Designer. Senior Lecturer @ KCL. 🗡🖌 @knifeandbrush 🤖🎮 @gamesbypuck @angelinasgames | he/they
King's College, London
possibilityspace.org
Joined February 2009
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    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Mar 16
    I've written a book! Next Level: Making Games That Make Themselves is the story of procedural generation - the tech behind games like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress. It's about how it works, the games that use it, and the art behind it. Out May 7th: linktr.ee/next_level
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    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Sep 14, 2023
    This is a funny joke except for the fact that Discord are 100% going to do some dumb money pivot one day and self-destruct in the exact same way Unity is.
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    mike cook
    @mtrc
    May 8, 2023
    helpful person in fromsoft game, covered in blood: ahhhhhh please, traveller, come into the basement where i will give you... your well-earned reward ehehehehe evil person in fromsoft game: mmm? oh. i do apologise. i was just thinking about all the orphans i need to feed.
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    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Feb 20, 2023
    a lot of people are asking me for talks/quotes/etc about "the future of AI for the games industry" and the truth is that most of the industry's ambitions are less useful, less meaningful and less human than this story about a mod made for a game that came out 17 years ago.
    user avatar
    robocop facts (robocopfacts on bluesky)
    @RobocopFacts
    Feb 20, 2023
    now I'm thinking about the oblivion mod terry pratchett wrote for
    screenshot from tes iv: oblivion showing a nord woman called vilja
    "The first letter from Terry arrived in March 2010, only three months after the original release," Emma told Eurogamer. In this message, Pratchett mentioned how enamoured he had become with Vilja, specifically mentioning his appreciation for the way in which she would acknowledge small gifts such as strawberries. "He also praised the modding community as a whole, mentioning how impressed he was by the effort put into mods, and how much he enjoyed using them." Emma didn't know if this was the real Terry Pratchett, but she responded anyway and the two struck up a regular correspondence. Pratchett gradually started to make small suggestions of his own based on his experience with Vilja. "He described how he had been exploring goblin caves with Vilja, and how he wished that he could study the goblins without having to kill them," Emma said. "The day after, I made him a 'goblin peace amulet' to make the goblins non-hostile and allow him to explore their dungeons without having to kill anyo
    Eventually, Pratchett even started to write dialogue for Vilja based on his exploration of the goblin dungeons of Oblivion. This led to a regular contribution of voice lines for Vilja from Pratchett, to the extent that the majority of Vilja's Thieves Guild dialogue can be attributed to him. "Terry always had a very humble and polite way of suggesting things for Vilja," Emma said. "I always felt that I was in charge and never that he was taking over. I always felt inspired by his ideas and loved to try to make them come true." Together with Charles, the three worked on the "Packdonkeys" mod, which allowed players to purchase up to four packdonkeys from the Chorrol Stables. Pratchett delighted in the fact that his donkey, Chico, kept stealing carrots and getting him and Vilja into trouble with the Imperial Guard. The more involved he got, the more invested he was becoming. Vilja was no longer just a companion mod - she was a person who kept growing as he, Emma, and Charles worked on he
    One of the most important features that was added to Vilja was the lead-the-way function, which Pratchett had specifically requested to help with his Alzheimer's. "By that point Terry was already having serious trouble with his memory," Charles told Eurogamer. "The sort of short-term memory functioning needed to navigate the game world was a particular problem for him." Charles and Emma worked particularly hard on implementing this function, which enabled Vilja to lead the player out of the dungeon they were in. However, this wasn't an easy task. "Since I knew there was a real need behind that request I kept thinking about it," Charles said. "Eventually, I realised that another Vilja feature moved a special marker around to track when she changed locations. Once I had that insight, combining the two features at the technical level was fairly easy." Once the function was operating properly, Pratchett could simply turn to Vilja and select the "I'm lost!" option whenever he got stuck in
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    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Jan 16, 2019
    This is a great concept - the device sits on top of an Alexa or similar and feeds it garbage noise, until you ask it specifically to let you speak to Alexa. A really cool idea for giving users control back over spaces invaded by smart devices.
    user avatar
    Bjørn Karmann
    @BjoernKarmann
    Jan 14, 2019
    Proud to anounce: #ProjectAlias a parasite for the surveillance age that lets you be in controle of your smart home device. Check out the project at bjoernkarmann.dk/project_alias
  • user avatar
    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Jun 12, 2024
    when sci-fi films talked about wars over shortages of drinking water i guess i assumed it'd be because of, like, climate change and not because your boss wants an ai to write his emails for him
    user avatar
    Rest of World
    @restofworld
    Jun 12, 2024
    In the midst of a drought, U.S. tech giants are building water-guzzling data centers in Chile. Locals are fighting back restofworld.org/2024/data-cent…
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    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Oct 16, 2021
    via 🔒, this is a shocking piece of AI research that furthers the (false) notion that we can or should give AI the responsibility to make ethical judgements. It’s not even a question of this system being bad or unfinished - there’s no possible “working” version of this.
  • user avatar
    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Jan 3, 2020
    If you're writing a book about game design, can I suggest: not doing this.
  • user avatar
    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Jun 25, 2024
    tweeting this now so when i search for it later i actually find it: adam saltsman gdc
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  • user avatar
    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Dec 12, 2022
    hi, i'm a web3 entrepreneur and generative ai specialist who has been thinking about the future of creativity for three entire days - here's why, twelve months from now, all human culture will be made by a single macbook pro sitting in an office in tulsa, oklahoma. 🧵
  • user avatar
    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Dec 8, 2017
    A lot of people will tell you "the best revenge is to live well" but actually you can do a 50-50 straight-up revenge/living well blend.
  • user avatar
    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Feb 20, 2018
    games media: i mean yeah he's racist but do creative directors really influence games that much? also games media: kojima personally kisses every pixel before adding it to death stranding. miyazaki invented the game over screen. phil fish willed fez into being by staring at a pc.
  • user avatar
    mike cook
    @mtrc
    Sep 5, 2018
    I know you already know this, but today's thread from Jack is the perfect crystallisation of the modern tech belief that neutrality is achievable, and specifically that machine learning can be made neutral. It's so obviously wrong, and will be looked back on with incredulity.
    user avatar
    jack
    Square
    @jack
    Sep 5, 2018
    Replying to @jack
    Twitter cannot rightly serve as a public square if it’s constructed around the personal opinions of its makers. We believe a key driver of a thriving public square is the fundamental human right of freedom of opinion and expression.
  • user avatar
    mike cook
    @mtrc
    May 8, 2023
    Replying to @mtrc
    in the basement there's a little cake with a thank-you note for helping him. exactly one player has ever gone down there and they left a note outside saying "turn back".
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